to mothers who love their children unconditionally and who set loving boundaries;

to mothers who accept their children where they’re at and as who they are instead of as who and where the mothers want them to be;

to cis mothers and trans mothers;

to genetic mothers and adoptive mothers and stepmothers and other-mothers;

to lesbian and bisexual mothers who are out to their children;

to mothers who never hit, spank, deride, or otherwise emotionally or physically abuse their children;

to mothers who break the cycle;

to mothers who respect their children as human beings with rights and desires as important as the mothers’ own;

to mothers who earn their children’s respect instead of demanding it of them;

to mothers who admit their challenges and who know they can’t do it all;

to mothers who like their children as well as love them;

to mothers who love and *celebrate* their LGBTQ and gender non-conforming children as much as their straight and cis children;

to mothers who honor and respect their disabled children as much as their able-bodied ones;

to mothers who raise strong children and children focused on social justice;

to mothers who teach their children to see and fight oppression in all its forms, especially when that oppression does not affect their children’s daily lives;

to mothers who expose their children to as much human diversity as possible – race, gender, class, physical and mental ability, sexual orientation, gender identity, immigration and linguistic status, religious, and all the other ways we have of being human;

to mothers who use birth control and who have abortions when they know that having children is not right for them at the moment;

to mothers who openly and honestly teach their kids about sex, sexuality, and birth control;

to mothers who are not afraid to ask for help and to mothers who offer help;

to mothers who don’t let fathers get away with doing nothing to help raise their children or maintain the household;

to mothers who raise feminist sons and assertive, self-confident daughters;

to mothers who teach all their children that “no” means “no;”

to single mothers;

to mothers raising children with multiple co-parents;

to mothers who don’t dress their boy babies in blue and their girl babies in pink;

to mothers who let their boys wear dresses and their girls play with trucks;

to mothers who know that sex isn’t gender and that biology isn’t destiny;

to mothers who struggle and mothers who triumph;

to mothers who live with adult children who need as much parenting as young children;